Watching the City Change In Real Time
Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 11:00AM Last night I was out at the Mac, and the show over, I was unlocking my bicycle when I heard voices behind me and I couldn't resist eavesdropping. Seven or eight beautifully groomed, expensive people in well-tended middle age came strolling down the pavement like gazelles. I peeked round. They were looking at the Art College with the air of tourists examining a indigenous grass hut. Charmed. Intrigued. Heads held, just so, slightly to one side.
Man 1: I think it might be what they call 'The Beat'?
Man 2: No it's 'Jordanstown'. The University of Ulster. That's what they call Jordanstown.
Woman 1: Look at the glass. Is it the new campus? They've built a new campus...
They all looked around, at the Cathedral, at the Potted Hen, at the Parking Lot, and nodded sagely, agreeing yes, these must all be evidence of the 'new campus'.
Man 2: This is the new district. The 'MIC' is here too.
Man 1 (pointing at me, whispering, but not quite quietly enough, in the manner of someone who doesn't really expect the natives to speak English): Cyclist.
Woman 1 (channelling Margaret Mead and nodding): Bohemian.
And with that they were off down the street. Moving slowly due to the women's skyscraper heels, looking expensive, filling up the whole street as they oozed up towards the Black Box, glancing down towards Oh Yeah, pointing and gazing around in wonder and the sort of anthropological intrigue usually fostered by the guides working with high-end cruise ship passengers.
And I remembered when I used to live at Elephant & Castle in London, in the days when no one dared use the Southbank walk but the residents and the artists who had studios in the area... and maybe the actors working at the newly opened Globe... and the brave diners who made their way to the Oxo building the same way Nick's Warehouse patrons have done here for years. How in those days we could wander around Borough Market and actually buy food.
And then one day, suddenly, the Southbank walk was crowded, and we couldn't get our bicycles through the crowds; who also blocked the way as they gazed around. It was something about the Globe, and the Market and the Tate Modern, and the Wheel all coming together and we watched it happen in front of our eyes.
And last night I thought 'oh yes, here we go again.'
Now of course I know, we've all been working to get the Cathedral Quarter up and running for years. Championing the Circus School, and Oh Yeah and the Black Box, the CQAF, the Festival of Fools, Out to Lunch. Yes, Nick's Warehouse's brave diners have beaten a path to his door for decades. I remember the buzz of the first Culture Night and music week, and the amazement of seeing all those people, but what I was watching last night was different. There wasn't any special reason for those people to be there. No festival, no event.
It was the arrival of a different tribe. And I was watching the change in real time, right in front of me.
Reader Comments (1)
yes it's strange how the places once so familiar are changing all around us. I have really found that to be true in Toronto. It's a very different place from the city we knew in university days.